


So Stand and Watch It Burn

by KChan88



Series: She Was Bound to Love You [16]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual!Christine, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Fire, Genderbending, Implied Sexual Content, Kidnapping, Lesbian Character, Lesbian!Raoul, Mild Sexual Content, Misogyny, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Consensual Touching, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rule 63, Threats of Violence, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: What if Raoul de Chagny was a woman?A series featuring the major events (and a few things in-between) from the Phantom of the Opera, with a gender-bent, lesbian Raoul (and a bisexual Christine). ALW based, with Leroux elements.Scene 10: Don Juan takes the stage. Christine holds onto memories of Raoul, and the best parts of herself, as she faces a nightmare. A disaster beyond imagination strikes the Paris opera house, and deep down in the caverns below the theater, a fallen angel and his muse clash over a wedding dress.(Or, Don Juan Triumphant, and the Final Lair Pt. 1)
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Series: She Was Bound to Love You [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627735
Comments: 17
Kudos: 29





	So Stand and Watch It Burn

**Author's Note:**

> I've tagged and rated appropriately, but we're definitely veering into the darkest parts of this fic, so just another warning!

Before the opera begins, Christine looks for Raoul in box 5.

Raoul’s rubbing at the hollow of her throat, and Christine smiles a little at the familiar nervous tick. Raoul does it sometimes before she plays the violin, or if she’s unsure about something.

She hardly ever gets to just…study Raoul, like this, and she can’t help but do so now. The way one hand rests on the ledge of the box, her long, elegant fingers curled around tight. Tense. Christine has a wild, fleeting thought that Raoul has good hands for the piano, and maybe they could try that out, when this is over. Raoul’s a natural with the violin already, and Christine knows enough piano to teach her.

Raoul is so breathtakingly, effortlessly beautiful. Christine remembers thinking so that second summer when they met again, catching herself looking at Raoul for just a moment too long as they frolicked across the sand, Raoul’s long, straight hair turned wavy by the salt as stray drops of water dripped from the edges.

She thinks of the one time they were rash enough to steal a kiss inside the opera house, just a few weeks before masquerade. They were always so aware. So careful. But they couldn’t help themselves, that day. She remembers Raoul’s eyes in the faint glimmer of the candlelight, bright blue and sparkling with eagerness. She tugged on Raoul’s shirt, pulling her closer as their lips met. Softly. Sweetly. Then with more need than they could do anything about, just then, Raoul running her fingertips up and down Christine’s side before pulling away with a teasing laugh.

The laugh made Christine kiss Raoul again. It made Christine _want_ her. Desperately.

She doesn’t mind a little seduction.

She minds this. This force. This violence. These unwanted overtures. Her teacher isn’t allowed to say who she falls in love with. Who she’s intimate with. Nothing. It’s her own private business, and no one else’s. Except he made it _everyone’s_ business, at the masquerade, knowing the consequences, even danger, she and Raoul might face as a result, and not just from him. He took this piece of herself she’d only just discovered and tried his best to rip it to shreds.

She runs her clammy hands over her dress, tying to stem their shaking.

The lights on the stage brighten.

A hush falls over the audience, the last wisps of chatter dying off.

The orchestra starts, the first dark, purposefully discordant note of Don Juan Triumphant piercing the air.

And there’s no more time to think.

The music is technically masterful. The strange work of a genius who knows where to put and place each and every note, rest, and word. Whose voice is best for which role. Everything.

But it isn’t _beautiful_. Not to her. Not like the music she heard in the lair that fateful night. If her teacher had asked, she’d have told him to tell a more respectful story. A kinder one.

This is not a romance, whatever he may think. Most women she knows do not enjoy being referred to as a conquest.

Act 1 passes without incident.

She doesn’t see her teacher. She doesn’t hear him. There’s no interruption no laughter no shaking chandelier or bodies dropping from the rafters.

She knows he’s watching. She _feels_ his eyes from somewhere within the opera house. She just doesn’t know where.

She sings her first aria without flaw, the cadenza pretty and perfect and soaring out over the orchestra. She can be nothing less, of course. Not now. Not tonight, even though the notes he’s forcing her to hit are beyond anything she’s done on stage before. She practiced so much the first week of rehearsal that Monsieur Reyer, of all people, asked her to take a rest.

That practice is paying off now, because she hit the high E without strain.

 _You don’t want to be considered a soubrette forever, do you?_ her teacher said when she was eighteen and learning how to make her voice sound stronger, brighter, on the high notes. _You’re a lyric soprano, you just need to practice._

He pushed her until her throat ached that night, and the next day she had to tell him she couldn’t do their lessons.

She remembers it was the first time he truly sounded _annoyed_ with her. Even angry. They worked on her lower range next, her chest voice, and she’ll need that tonight, even if she wishes the lesson hadn’t come from him.

She shakes her head. She has to focus. She has to _think_ , because the duet she most fears is next. 

_The_ _Point of No Return_ , in the middle of Act 2.

Meg passes by before she’s due on the stage, grasping Christine’s hand.

“You can do it,” she whispers, close in Christine’s ear. “I know you can do it.”

Christine squeezes Meg’s fingers, her heart beating in her throat as her friend lets go, the chorus’ next words cutting across her skin like a thousand tiny knives.

_Here the sire may serve the dam  
Here the master takes his meat  
Here the sacrifical lamb  
Utters one dispairing bleat_

_Poor young maiden!  
For the thrill on your tongue of stolen sweets  
You will have to pay the bill  
Tangled in the winding sheets!_

_Serve the meal and serve the maid!  
Serve the master so that  
When tables, plans and maids are laid  
Don Juan triumphs once again!_

She hates this. She _hates_ it. She has to do it. For whatever life lies beyond this night, she has to do it.

She takes one deep breath. She still hers racing heart. She remembers her father and his smile and the violin notes curling into the air like a prayer. Like safety. Like home.

She hears waves crashing onto the shore in Brittany.

And she thinks of Raoul.

She steps to the edge of the stage, giving a quick glance up to box 5. She smiles at Raoul, and Raoul, sitting just at the edge of her seat, smiles back. Piangi and the man playing Passarino sing their part about tricking Aminta, and Christine is grateful, at least, for how kind Piangi has been to her, apparently sensing her discomfort with this subject matter. Or perhaps Carlotta, who seemed to guess, spoke to him. She tries not to hear all the words while still being ready for her part, but _conquest is assured_ slips through, a brief shiver running up her spine. The unwelcome kind.

Then, it’s her turn.

_No thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy. No dreams within her heart, but dreams of love._

Her voice is clear. Perfect. She steps into the center of the stage, taking the apple from the table and passing it back and forth from from one hand to the other, trying, hoping, that her acting is believable even as fear starts gushing through her.

_Master?_

_Passarino._

Christine stops herself from jolting.

That voice.

No. It can’t be.

Piangi was just here.

_Go away for the trap is set and waits for its prey._

No, it. No.

It’s not him. It can’t be him. She expected him to do _something_ but…

He keeps singing.

_You have come here  
In pursuit of your deepest urge  
In pursuit of that wish which till now  
Has been silent, silent_

The man who is supposed to be Piangi steps over toward her in his black cloak, handing her the golden goblet from the table as she puts the apple down. She pretends to drink from it because that’s what she’s supposed to do. There’s an Italian accent on the words, but it’s _off_ , it’s not right, and he isn’t built the same, either.

He’s too close. Closer than he’s supposed to be.

 _I have brought you_ _  
That our passions may fuse and merge  
In your mind you've already succumbed to me  
Dropped all defenses, completely succumbed to me  
Now you are here with me, no second thoughts  
You've decided, decided_

She knows that voice. She knows it anywhere. She remembers the first time she heard it, and she remembers trying to snap the connection in the graveyard.

It’s him.

It’s _absolutely_ him and she…

Why didn’t she _think_ of this? Why didn’t she think he would do this she should have known he would.

She steps away, letting a playful grin slide across her lips because people are watching, and she has a role to play.

He only moves closer, and she has to let him take her wrist as they do a strange half waltz across the stage. She has to smirk like she’s playing a game.

His voice is right in her ear, his touch just a bit too tight like he’s punishing her for the graveyard. For her defiance in the grand hall when she said, _not hers. Ours._ Reminding her of his power. Love, but with conditions. Demands. Rules that she decided to break.

 _Past the point of no return_ _  
No backward glances  
The games we've played till now are at an end  
Past all thought of if or when  
No use resisting  
Abandon thought and let the dream descend_

The last four words strike her in the chest. They strike and they hurt, and she’s transported to that night in the lair in a whirl of over-bright, confusing, nauseating color. The night that always felt like a dusky, dripping dream. Unreal. Like paint slipping through her fingers. She remembers the words he sang to her then, the way he lightly touched her face. The way he drew her toward him then pushed her away anytime she stepped near without his invitation. Push and pull and push and pull.

_Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation  
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in_

A memory she’d forgotten, distrusted, comes back to her. A memory of her teacher leaning with his back against the portcullis. Of being close to him and jumping away, because when she looked down she saw that he was…that he was…

He was…

And then she saw the doll and she fainted and…

She freezes. She can’t freeze. There isn’t time for that. She steers them closer to the table almost without thought, putting the goblet down, his fingers still around her wrist.

What could have happened, were he less in control, that night?

 _Abandon thought. Succumb. Turn away from the daylight._ Those are his words. What he wants from her. Never to think. Never to be anything but his muse. Never Christine. Just _his_ Christine.

She rips her wrist out of his grasp.

He circles around her, but she can’t run backstage because he’ll only follow her, and she can’t put her friends in danger. She won’t.

The music and his lust are intertwined, aren’t they? Her voice and her body are the same, to him. If she gives him one, he demands the other. That night wasn’t a teacher showing himself to his student, was it? It was a man trying to seduce her, on his terms. Never hers. Not once.

It wasn’t a dream at all.

It was the beginning of the nightmare.

Did he ever care about her? He _must_ have, but…

She goes over to sit on the bench. That’s the blocking. That’s the direction. Every time she even looks at the wings he follows her, and she needs to take the lead, somehow. Her stomach roils but she has to do this she _has_ to.

He follows.

She spreads her legs out when she sits, though less than she’s meant to. He’s standing behind her and his voice, that _voice_ , sticks to her skin like candlewax. She wants to wash it off, she wants to _go_.

_What raging fire shall flood the soul?  
What rich desire unlocks its door?_

He’s boxing her in. His hands hover above her shoulders before running lightly up and down her arms and she wants to retch, she wants to…

She thinks of Raoul instead. She _wills_ herself to think of Raoul instead. She thinks of their first time. She thinks of the long, lingering, kisses. She thinks of Raoul’s soft _I love you_ as she helped Christine get her dress off, planting a kiss in the space between her neck and her shoulders. Of the tingle that ran down her spine in the best sort of way.

_What sweet seduction lies before us  
Past the point of no return_

_The final threshold?_

That silky voice washes over her and he swings his leg over, straddling the bench as he sits down. Close. Too close. He has her hand. He’s running it up her thigh over the material of her dress. Slowly. Tortuously.

She shuts her eyes, leaning back into the arm that goes around her shoulders and trying to be Aminta and not Christine. Shutting her eyes lets her go back to Raoul and forget the hand over hers, the hand moving _up up up_. She focuses on the memory. The memory of her heart racing and the warmth in her stomach. The way Raoul’s kisses trailed downward, gently, tenderly, until Christine asked for more. Raoul gave it, and she saw stars.

Her teacher’s voice jerks her from the memory, and she claws it back as she opens her eyes. Raoul’s hands on her. Not his. Not _his_.

_What warm, unspoken secrets will we learn  
Beyond the point of no return?_

He holds her hand tighter like he knows what she’s thinking about, forcing it up over her chest and lingering there a moment before going up to her neck.

Another memory surfaces, a memory of early morning about a week before Raoul proposed. They were safe in the little flat, half-wrestling in the mussed sheets and trying to be the first one to kiss the other. Christine won, Raoul laughing against her lips as she let herself be pushed into the pillows.

_Christine Daae, you minx._

Christine slid her hand down, drawing a noise of pleased surprise from Raoul, who melted into the touch.

 _Shh_ , Christine said, grinning until her face hurt. _No more talking._

There was no fear. Just joy. Just them.

She leans in for the almost kiss the stage directions imply, but _oh_ , her teacher doesn’t like that, and he turns his head away. Christine takes a chance, pulling her hand out of his and jumping up from the bench before running over to right side of the stage.

She’s shaking. She’s shaking and she broke character. She has to figure this out. She has to do something. She has to keep going. The police can’t do anything until they know it’s him. And they don’t know, do they? Not for sure, even if he looks and sounds different to Piangi. And there’s the audience to think of. Their safety. She doesn’t want the police to have to shoot him but she…she has to uncover him, trap him, so they can tackle him. Take him in.

She looks up at Raoul in box 5.

Raoul’s crying.

She has one hand clapped over her mouth, the other holding tight to something. The new sword cane, Christine assumes. She knows how she would feel if their roles were reversed, and someone was putting their hands all over Raoul, instead. Unwanted, insistent hands.

Tears stream down Raoul’s face, and she moves her hand to wipe them away.

They lock eyes as well as they can from this distance, and Christine gives one, tiny nod of her head. Raoul makes a small gesture at one of the officers, a gesture that says _wait._

Something in Christine’s chest breaks open.

Raoul is her hero. She’s determined to be Raoul’s, too.

Her teacher still doesn’t move.

That is, until he looks straight up at box 5. Like he thinks he isn’t getting what he wants and he’s turning the blame on Raoul. Like Raoul’s the one who cast the spell, and not him.

Christine shakes her head. She straightens her shoulders and spins around, looking right at her teacher. Her voice comes out clear and strong and beautiful, even with these ugly words.

_You have brought me  
To that moment where words run dry  
To that moment where speech disappears into silence  
Silence._

She strides with slow, seductive purpose to where he sits, and it’s this that draws his gaze away from Raoul, and back to her.

_I have come here  
Hardly knowing the reason why  
In my mind I've already imagined our bodies entwining, defenseless and silent._

She intertwines her own fingers, moving them up and down and up and down. He watches, and though she can’t see his face well through the sheer black cloak, she thinks he’s smirking. Smirking like he thinks he’s won. Like he’s finally seduced her.

He doesn’t think she’ll trick him, and she wishes she didn’t have to.

But she does.

_And now I am here with you, no second thoughts  
I've decided, decided_

She can’t look at Raoul again, not now, not when she’s about to do the hardest part of this, but she takes Raoul’s voice with her, a memory so strong that it might overpower the man who taught her to sing, and demanded an unpayable price in return.

_You deserve light, Christine Daae. Summers. Joy. I swear I’ll do my best to give it to you, if you’ll have me._

She doesn’t want this darkness. _His_ darkness. She doesn’t deserve it. Her teacher doesn’t, either, but he refuses to leave it, and she won’t allow him to drag her down with him anymore, no matter how beautiful the music. No. All she’s had since her father died is her darkness, her grief, and she misses the light.

Raoul offered it back to her. Raoul reminded her who she is, and Christine wants to _be_ that young girl again, the girl dancing on the shore in the sunlight. Singing. Laughing.

Erik wants to trap her in her grief. In the deep dark caverns of his own pain.

She’s not going to let him.

She takes her place behind him, her fingertips grazing his neck before coming to rest on his shoulders. She leans in close, still making her voice project out across the audience.

_Past the point of no return  
No going back now  
Our passion play has now at last begun_

He’s not looking at Raoul anymore, utterly and entirely focused on her as he runs his hands up and down his own thighs. Christine reaches down, seizing them and intertwining their fingers so he can’t can’t think of pulling anything out of his cloak like the did that day in the graveyard.

She can’t let him look at Raoul again.

_Past all thought of right or wrong  
One final question  
How long should we two wait before we're one?_

She moves their joined hands across her teacher’s chest, and her stomach _aches_ , but if she can lure him in, if she can do that enough to uncover him and run, then she’ll have done everything she needed to do. She doesn’t want him to die and it will hurt if he does, but she won’t sacrifice herself. She presses herself against his back as the climax of the song approaches, her voice going low and deep to the bottom of her register, just the way he taught her.

_When will the blood begin to race  
The sleeping bud burst into bloom?  
When will the flames at last consume us?_

Their voices join together. He finally stands up, sliding one hand down to take her wrist before she can stop him, the other still linked with hers.

_Past the point of no return  
The final threshold_

She tries pulling her wrist free, but he won’t let _go_ , pressing tight until it hurts.

_The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn_

She finally frees one hand, their voices landing in perfect harmony on the last line of the song,

_We've passed the point of no return._

She tosses back the hood of his cloak before he can stop her.

He gives a little snarl of disapproval before staring at her for a long moment, a cold, sharp, glint in his eyes beneath the white mask.

He’s angry. Angry at her.

The audience gasps.

Christine feels the crowd’s eyes on her, expecting whatever comes next, except she’s gone off script, now. Off his script. Maybe they think this is part of the show, his mask part of the costume, though surely they must see it isn’t the same man as before.

God, what happened to Piangi?

She pauses a moment too long.

His hand tightens around her wrist, and she hears people moving at the edge of the stage, the police officers, but she’s too close for them to shoot. He’s made it so. As soon as she revealed him, as soon as she gave them what they needed, she’s too close for them to act.

He tugs her toward him.

“Kiss me,” he says, the words low and deep in his throat like a growl. He tries seizing her other hand, but she keeps it back. “Kiss me, Christine.”

A demand, rather than a request, and yet it sounds oddly frantic. Unsure. Almost helpless.

Raoul’s voice comes to her from the rooftop. The reverence with which she asked the question.

_I won’t kiss you unless you want me to. I...do you want me to?_

He moves her yet closer, their faces nearer than she wants.

“You want to kiss me, don’t you? I know you do,” he continues, that familiar smoothness replacing the growl. Sweetness, if she didn’t know better. A spell.

Except the spell doesn’t work, anymore.

The worn, warped string of their old connection isn’t quite gone, but he can’t trick her, anymore, not with his voice. Not with anything.

“Please, Christine…” he whispers, running one finger over her lips, and she realizes that he heard their every _word_ on the rooftop, and he’s stealing something sacred. He sounds oddly vulnerable. Sad. But his sadness can’t account for the thousand ways he tried to break her already broken heart. “My Christine.”

Her own voice from that night in the snow echoes in her memory. The giddiness rushing through her as she looked at Raoul.

_Yes, I do. Do you...want to kiss me?_

He leans forward just a touch more, but he’s hesitating, he’s _hesitating_ and she doesn’t know why, but she does know what she has to do.

She reaches up and rips the mask from his face.

Only, he doesn’t let go of her like she thought he might.

A strangled scream echoes through the opera house. His scream. People in the audience scream, too, the sounds piercing the air like a stream of dissonant notes. He tightens his grasp on her wrist to the point of pain, and reaches for something.

One of the strange powder flasks from the graveyard.

He throws one directly at the first row, and Christine swears she hears Raoul shout _no_ among the chorus of yet more screams.

One of the lush, upholstered chairs catches fire as its occupant dives out of the way, the bright orange flame melting into the red and making the fabric bleed.

 _Water!_ Someone shouts. _Water now!_

He throws another, this time at the foot of the stage, a cloud of smoke enveloping them as Monsieur Reyer cries out from the orchestra pit.

Christine coughs and her eyes water and she can’t see, but one word bursts pasts her lips. One name.

_Raoul!_

The gray-white smoke hangs in the air and she can’t make out box 5 and then there’s a hand clasped over her mouth, stifling her voice.

_Christine!_

She hears Raoul’s voice over the din, though. Over the shouts. Over the water crashing down on the flames ripping through the row of seats, spreading from one to the other. It’s high-pitched. Sharp. A scream like Christine’s never heard from her before. She sounds panicked. Young. Like everything in her life is being ripped from her bare hands.

Raoul never sounds like that.

Her teacher puts a too-tight arm around her waist and drags her across the stage, half-lifting her off her feet. He moves his hand away from her mouth to pull out another of the powder flasks, tossing it down the hallway to make the company members waiting there scatter.

“Let me _go_!” she shouts, just as the glass shatters on the floor, her vision smeared once again as they run through the smoke. Screams follow them, people shouting her name.

Her teacher of course, pays her no mind. He only tightens the arm around her waist.

There’s a bloodcurdling scream, nearby. Someone’s dead. Someone must be dead, she just doesn’t know who.

He pushes her into the old dressing room where this all began, and as they step through the mirror like they did that fateful night, she knows this is no dream.

It’s a nightmare.

Her worst nightmare.

* * *

She barely hears her teacher’s voice as he pulls her down the long hallway toward the lake. Toward the boat. Toward everything she dreads.

“You’re hurting me!” she exclaims, trying once more to yank her wrist from his grasp.

He keeps going even faster than before, loosening his grip just a touch, though he doesn’t let go.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks, breathing fast as he just keeps dragging her on, faster and faster and faster.

“To _hell_ of course,” he says, scathing and matter of fact. “To the darkness I’ve built for myself. I’m sure you remember it.” His words are quick, cutting, rushed, like something’s bubbling up inside him, something furious and eager all at once. Like he’s been waiting. He stops very abruptly and only for a moment, turning to face her. “Why did you do this to me, Christine? I wrote Don Juan Triumphant for you. Every word. Every note for you.” He starts forward again, the murky silver blue of the lake just up ahead. “That girl is why,” he mutters, nearly to himself. “That damn girl.”

There’s not a chance for her to answer because they’ve reached the boat and he all but pushes her in. This is a far cry from that first night she came down, drenched in things she thought were dreams.

This is everything she feared. Everything.

“You know why I built this prison, don’t you, Christine? This jail cell without bars?” he asks, rowing speedily along the lake. “Not for any sin, no. Because of this wicked face. This face haunts me more than I haunt the opera, I assure you.”

She studies his face, the deformity and the way it runs red and angry down his face, the skin mottled and twisted on one side. He’s put her at the front of the boat facing him, so it’s all she can do, really. She doesn’t jump. She doesn’t jolt, because it doesn’t scare her. It startled her, when she first saw it, but it wasn’t what she was afraid of. She was afraid of the way he reacted. The way he seized her and threw her down. The way he shouted and screamed and called her terrible names.

She knows people have been cruel to him, and her heart hurts because of it. She’s heard the pain in his voice. She wishes none of that happened to him.

Who might he have been if it hadn’t? She doesn’t know. She can’t. She only knows he’s the sort of man willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. To exact revenge. Murder. Destroy. Kidnap. There are no limits. Not anymore. There barely were, before, but something’s snapped, now. Broken. Perhaps he thought he could win her, on that stage.

And then he didn’t.

She blinks back tears, turning away from him and willing herself not to lose the tiny bit she’s eaten today over the side of the little boat. “Can’t you see how cruel you’ve been to the people in this opera house? To…”

_To me._

He sniffs, a sharp, cruel sort of thing. “They deserved it.”

“Do I deserve it?”

Her teacher doesn’t answer. He just keeps rowing.

“This face of mine is the only thing standing in the way of us, Christine.” He jabs his finger toward himself without his usual elegant, practiced movements, removing one hand from the oar. “No longer. It’s why you believe you don’t love me, when I know you do. The world would certainly have you believe you never could, but I know the truth. The music binds us. It always will.”

Christine thinks of the masquerade. She thinks of people looking at her and at Raoul, some with kindness, but more with judgement. She thinks of the story Raoul told her about why she carries the sword cane. She thinks of the things they’ll never be able to say, out loud. The things they can’t do. Even having the ability to be together with less questions, with less immediate danger, only exists because of Raoul’s status. Her wealth. And there is danger still. Not of the illegal kind, but in myriad other ways.

“Do you want to talk about the world?” Christine whispers, knowing she shouldn’t say this, but she’s done sparing him. “When you exposed us at the masquerade, you risked my career and my safety. Do you understand that? You had no trouble using the world you claim to hate against Raoul and against me when it suited you.”

She speaks fast, breathing hard, and she’s never spoken to her teacher this way, but her worst nightmare has come true.

She may as well fight back.

“Don’t speak of that wretched, devious girl to me!” Erik shouts, making Christine jump. “She’s put you under a spell. Weaved a web. Tricked you. Fooled you. I’ll see that undone.”

Some of the words from Don Juan come back to her. Words she didn’t think about initially, surprised as she was at hearing her teacher’s voice.

_Our games of make believe are at an end._

Make believe. Was he mocking her, then? Mocking her for holding a childish belief that maybe, just maybe, he was some spirit, some angel, sent by her father? He was revealing himself certainly, pulling the wool off at last.

“No,” she whispers, words spilling out of her mouth before she can stop herself. “You did that.”

A misplaced grin slips across her face.

She thinks she sounds a little like Raoul.

They reach the lair just then, and her teacher growls in displeasure, distracted from responding as he opens the portcullis. It creaks as it goes up, some stray water dripping from the bottom as the edge of the lake laps at the stone around the lair. He takes her hand before she can protest, pulling her out of the boat.

He doesn’t let go.

She spies something she didn’t see the first night, a cut-out in the stone not far from the organ, with a door in front of it that looks like something you might see in a prison. A cell, of sorts.

What’s _that_ for?

“When she comes for you, it won’t matter,” her teacher says, the words half a snarl, and he’s never sounded like this with her before. “Your _pretty beau_ , I mean. If it’s a choice between her own skin, and you, I know what she’ll choose. Wealthy people are like that, you know. Making themselves scarce at the first sign of trouble. You’re an opera singer, Christine. Nothing of consequence to her. It’s the order of the world, and I know it well.”

Christine clenches her free fist. “You don’t know her.”

He chuckles, the sound frantic and half mad. “I know her. She didn’t help you when you needed it before, did she? I did. She was nowhere to be found.”

Christine stares at him. “What?”

“The letter you wrote her, of course!” he shouts, like she should understand him immediately even though he’s being deliberately subtle.

“What letter?”

“You were crying one day just after I started teaching you. You were looking at that red scarf and wondering why a friend never wrote you back.” Erik seems pleased at her confusion. “That it had been a year since you sent it, just before you arrived at the opera. It was her, wasn’t it? The de Chagny girl.”

“I…” Christine reaches for the memory, and it comes back to her in tattered pieces. So many of her memories of the opera are like that. Incomplete. Memories of Meg stand out with the most color, and her voice lessons with Erik with the clearest sound. “I suppose it was. But we were so young, anything could have happened to a letter. You can’t turn me against her.”

Christine feels reckless. Manic. She’s done placating. She’s afraid, but she almost doesn’t care. If he’s going to trap her here, she’ll make it difficult.

Erik meets her eyes. “She couldn’t _deign_ to answer you then, when you were grieving. She claims to have loved your father, but she left you in that loss, didn’t she? She wanted to play at St. George with you, that was all. Pull you into her deviance. She’s as much a charming rake as any young man attempting the same, I’m not surprised it worked.”

Christine feels her face turning bright, beet red, and she’s shaking from fear and from rage all at once. A faint memory appears in her head, hazy as those first few days after her father died always are. Running to the home of Raoul’s aunt. Collapsing into Raoul’s arms. Raoul passing her a piece of paper with an address on it a few days later. She wrote a letter as soon as she knew she would be going to Paris, knowing Raoul was likely to keep residence at the family home in the country for a few more years before moving to the city with her brother as she wished.

An answer never came, but she thought it got lost, and she…when she saw Raoul again she didn’t think of it.

She grits her teeth. “Don’t speak of my father anymore. Please.”

Her teacher tugs her closer, his grip tightening on her wrist once again, but he doesn’t seem to notice her wince. “That girl’s interested in you as long as she can be the grand, dashing hero. I promise you if she arrives here, there won’t be room for that.” He leans in and she can’t look away, his old charisma rising to the surface—fractured though it may be—and demanding her attention. “If it’s a choice between her life and your freedom, I assure you, she’ll _beg_ me for the former.”

Tears brim in Christine’s eyes, and she feels like she might retch. “Is that the choice? Is that your plan?”

He doesn’t answer, and she’s not even terribly sure he heard her, throwing her hand from his before striding over toward the doll that made her faint the first time he brought her down here.

The doll wearing the wedding dress.

Christine realizes what he’s doing before he does it.

“You are to put this dress on,” he says, taking it off the doll with more care than he’s handled Christine all evening. “Without argument.”

“No.”

“You will do it…” Erik seethes, tossing the doll into the strange throne-chair she didn’t really notice before. “Or I will do it for you. Your choice.”

Christine’s heart starts racing, because he _will_ do it for her, and after what happened on the stage tonight, she….

She fears where that might lead.

She takes the dress, all silk taffeta and lace and not really the sort of style she’d choose for herself.

“Where do I put this on?”

It’s her teacher’s turn for confusion.

“What?”

“Where do I put this _on_? I need privacy to change.”

A wild thing to ask, at this juncture, but she has to at least try.

“Christine,” he says, a little softer, his voice as silken as the dress. “You’re to be my wife, you know. There’s no need to…”

“I’m not your wife, and there is.” Christine pulls the dress against herself, feeling vulnerable, suddenly, even if she still wearing her costume. “Where?”

He pauses, staring at her again and shaking his head as if he’s throwing something off. Some feeling. Like he’s seeing her differently than before. It’s gone as soon as she sees it, and he scowls, gesturing toward an area at the edge of the lair, and she sees a bed with a curtain half-pulled around it. A sheer one, but it will do. She goes without another word, closing the curtain behind her. It’s a trial getting her costume off by herself, but she manages it, before turning to the wedding dress. That’s a trial too, and it laces from the back, which is _not_ something she can do alone.

Her hands start shaking.

Does she want Raoul to come? Yes. Also no. Both. Not that she could stop Raoul, of course. Not now. She would come, if their places were switched, so she can’t even be angry.

She’s so afraid Raoul will die, and she can’t bear it. Not that. Never that. Please God, not that.

She will do anything, _anything_ to prevent it. Raoul has a life out there, and Christine can’t bear to live with Raoul’s blood on her hands. With that grief. No.

She couldn’t stop her father from dying. If it comes to it, she swears she’ll stop this.

Her teacher’s there as soon as she steps out from behind the curtain, turning her around without a word and lacing up the dress. She starts shaking visibly the moment his hands are on her, and she wills herself to stop.

“There’s no need for you to fear me, Christine,” he grumbles, sounding more human than he ever has before. “Other people ought to.”

She pulls away as soon as he’s done. “Isn’t there? You murdered someone tonight, didn’t you? I just don’t know who. Was it Piangi, who never did anything to you? Joseph Buquet wasn’t enough for your bloodlust?” She releases a deep, shuddering breath. “Am I to be your prey now? You’ve made it clear what you want of me, even if I’m not willing to give it.”

Her teacher turns his back on her, walking over to his organ and running a finger across the keys. “Oh, Christine. The same fate that has condemned me to bloodshed has always denied me certain…joys.” He reaches for something near his beloved instrument.

A veil.

He makes his way slowly back to her, coming to rest less than a foot away. “I wore an old garment over my face when I was a boy, because my mother couldn’t bear to look at me.” He smiles, but that’s not really the right word for it. “My first mask.”

“I’m sorry,” Christine whispers, and she is. She really is. She wishes she could talk to this man, this sad, mistreated man, instead of the one that’s here. This man who is filled with rage. Revenge. And nothing else. “I’m sorry, Erik.”

He holds up a hand, flinching at the use of his name. “It’s too late for your pity, Christine.” He takes her wrist again, tugging her closer and putting th e veil on her head. “This is your fate. This face. Me. You had best start getting used to it.”

He releases her, taking something out of his pocket.

The necklace Raoul gave her, that he stole during the masquerade.

She reaches for it out of instinct, this treasure she only possessed for a few hours, but he only laughs, pulling it back again.

“Uh uh,” he says, a cruel, gentle mockery. “Lovely as this is, I think we shall rid ourselves of it, once we’re married. A ring is the only proper symbol of a union. Even a monster knows that. She can’t marry you, after all. Even with this face, I can.”

Something heavy plummets to the bottom of Christine’s stomach, and she lets the tears run down her face unabated. She looks her teacher in the eye, and he doesn’t tear his gaze away.

“Your face is not the horror,” she whispers, mere inches from the man who has lied to her a thousand times and then again. “It’s your soul.”

Suddenly, her teacher’s not looking at her anymore. No, he’s looking beyond the portcullis, and he’s _grinning_.

“Mademoiselle de Chagny!” he exclaims, and he sounds _thrilled_. “You’ve arrived, what an _unparalleled_ delight! I was beginning to wonder if you might prove too much a coward.” He turns toward Christine again, yanking her forward and putting a tight arm around her shoulders. “Look, my dear! We have a guest.”

“Raoul!” Christine shouts, trying to pull out of his grasp, but it does little good. Her teacher isn’t particularly broad, or muscular—in fact he’s quite thin—but he’s strong, somehow, his long-fingered grip in particular. She feels his height now, too, the way he towers over her by a good six or seven inches.

Christine barely stifles a sob as Raoul reaches the portcullis—she’s absolutely drenched, her wet hair sticking to her face as she takes rapid, shallow breaths, that pink-red lipstick from earlier smeared across her cheek.

She must have swum all the way across the lake.

“I did _hope_ you would come,” Erik says, with the air of having invited someone to a dinner party, and not whatever gruesome thing he has planned. “You’ve simply made my night, mademoiselle. I can’t tell you how much.”

He sounds murderous. Bloodthirsty. That voice she knew, the voice that spoke gently to her in those early days, that voice that made her own soar, is gone.

And there’s only the monster.

Raoul wraps her hands around the bars of the portcullis, taking more hurried breaths as three words ring through the cavernous space.

“Let her go.”

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of things! 
> 
> Note: "playing at St. George" is a 19th century sexual euphemism, in case that wasn't clear from context! 
> 
> I will rewind a bit in the next installment so you can see what happened with Raoul at the end of Point of No Return, so never fear! I also have 4-5 chapters planned post the final lair (which is next) so we've a good bit to go, still.


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